Timeshare ownership

[fbg40]

Hi
I own a timeshare week in Gran Canaria, at the Airtours Beach Club. While there last week, I was approached by a rep trying to convince me to change my ownership, which is at present with Interval International, to a points system with RCI. The Beach Club has recently been sold and is now to be called Blue Bay Beach Club. Apparently, I was supposed to have received a letter and documentation about this "changeover". I would be interested to hear from any owners at ABC who have also been approached, and if so, what are their opinions.
Many thanks
FBG40

[vehelpfulguy]

I know almost nothing about timeshares, but I did a search in google for "Interval International RCI" and found quite a few sites. Maybe also add "Airtours Beach Club" to the search.

Maybe you can do a search and see if anyone else is asking the same questions.

Some sites I found

http://www.thetimesharebeat.com/whatis2.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_Internat ional

http://www.timeshare.org.uk/exchange.html

[buildersmate]

The website the above is referring to is here.
I've taken you right to the page on Blue Bay - work your way through the different postings.
An 'ABers health warning' - Crimeshare (in my opinion) is a useful way at getting at some of the truth behind a particular situation, but you cannot always believe all you read.
http://www.madtrot.com/23.html
If you are getting what you want from II in terms of exchanges, then I would question whay you want to change. Points (in my opinion) is a complete farce and it was invented by the timeshare industry so it could keep selling the poor punters something once the sales of new timeshare became saturated. The way it is claimed to work is that you buy Points (plus the obligatory extra annual maintenance fees on the Points) to add to your 'poor quality' and your trading power is enhanced. Think about it - the amount of good quality timeshare out there is fixed, so buying more points makes you worth more? No - because everyone is clammering to aspire to the same small number of Gold Crown Resorts (best quality). For people who own at a Gold Crown resort, it just means more people are trying to get into the same number of resorts.

[fbg40]

Buildersmate
Many thanks for your reply - the link is most enlightening !!
FBG40

[KARL]

I agree with the sentiment expressed regarding points versus weeks. We have repeatedly been offered/urged to change from week to points but it has always more or less amounted to buying your week all over again (in terms of cost). We have managed our banking and exchange (RCI) very carefully and have found it works well for us without the points. The points are clearly more flexible but there is in my opinion no incentive to spend a pile of money just to join that system. If you buy a further timeshare (surely on the second hand market, not new - the difference in cost is enormous) - then arrange to put the new one into points (not buying any additional points) if you so choose. The cost of that route into the points is modest. II and RCI are similar in set-up and I suspect it matters little which you are in for weeks but if you are in both you pay two annual subscriptions whereas you can put more than one timeshare into one and pay only the one subscription.